That laughingly noted, Risser rarely remains motionless in her second career - just show her an open-mic night in the Bay Area - and has no intention of slowing down any time soon.

She'll be busy Friday in Lodi when she "hosts" a stand-up comedy dinner-show at Lodi's Wine & Roses. She's assigned to maintain the humorous mood for Huck Flyn, who tells jokes and sings rock songs, and San Francisco veteran Larry "Bubbles" Brown.

"I've never been to Lodi," Risser said from her home in Concord. "That sounds great."

She has made them laugh in Atascadero and Maui. On March 18, she's producing her own show at San Francisco's Punch Line. How come?

"It's fun," she said. "If comedy stops being fun and became a job, I would stop. I think most comics feel this way. The laughter you get from the audience is a high. Higher than any drug could possibly be.

"I do as much as I possibly can. I'm out doing comedy four or five nights a week."

She amended one of her self-deprecating descriptions: "Sandra's smart, funny and older than Twinkies." Not quite. "Actually, I think I'm older than Twinkies," Risser said.

It's no joke, though, that Risser preceded her comic punch line by becoming a competitive body builder at age 48.

"I'm really competitive," she said. "But I got a lot of second-place trophies. Never first or third."

"For a while," nobody would hire her as a novice 63-year-old comedian.

"I really liked being up on stage," Risser recalled. "I enjoyed acting. Somewhere in my brain, comedy took hold. They wouldn't hire me because I was older. The more I got into it, though, I found out that wasn't true.

"If you're funny, they want you for whatever reason. It appears, to a large extent, demographic. For example, I've never done a college campus. I don't know whether I could or not."

When she was growing up in Sioux City, Iowa, that question seemed firmly answered.

"To quote an old high-school friend," Risser said with a laugh. " 'You are the last person I ever thought would become a comic.' I was so serious. I had a dry sense of humor. I'd just make a one-line crack about things. I was the teacher's pet. A goody two-shoes. A little suck-up.

"My ex-husband and I grew up in the Midwest during all that sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in the '60s."

She also was a cheerleader. Risser's family - father Frank, an attorney, mom Fay and a brother and sister - wasn't particularly funny, though "they did have a good sense of humor."

When she enrolled at UCLA, Risser was "so naive" she didn't know USC was a separate entity. That's kind of funny.

She studied psychology and computers. Before her body-building and comedic epiphanies, Risser edited high school achievement tests and owned her own travel agency in Walnut Creek.

Not exactly Comedy Central material.

Risser's only concession to passing time is a condition ("essential tremors") that "drives me crazy," she said. "I mention it to the audience so they don't think I'm shaking because I'm nervous."

She finds humor everywhere but stays away from political witticisms or satire.

"I can't tell a canned joke to save my soul," said Risser, who considers the audience a "friend" that helps stimulate her wit. "Sometime things fall into your lap. I was reading the newspaper and saw a small blurb about a blind activist who said, 'If I have a gun, all I have to do is point and shoot.' That's the premise for a joke."

Her second marriage, to Michael Risser, who works in the computer industry, is nearing 24 years. Her husband, whom she describes as "wonderful," even goes along with the gag when she seeks out open-mic comedy sessions while they're on vacation. No more competitive body-building, though.

While she kids entertainers such as Rivers, Risser does ponder having that level of show-biz visibility.

"I would love to be known as a really famous comic," she said. "That'll happen - at this point - only if I get a really big break. I would like to go to Australia. They do have some fabulous comedy there. When I'm on vacation, if I can find a stage and time, I do it. As I say, it's fun.

"I'm headlining (at the Punch Line). You never know what'll happen. Knock on wood. As long as I've got my heath and mobility, I'll keep going."

Contact Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsaurorecord.